Alanis Morissette

Award-winning Canadian singer and songwriter Alanis Morissette's deeply poetic confessionals weave alternative rock angst with mainstream pop appeal. A former child actress turned dance-pop diva in her native Canada, she transformed herself into one of the biggest stars of the era alongside kindred spirits like Liz Phair and Tori Amos. Her breakthrough, Jagged Little Pill, caught the zeitgeist of the mid-'90s, splitting the difference between Gen-X cynicism and genuine emotional candor. Spinning off a series of enduring, chart-topping singles, including "You Oughta Know," "Hand in My Pocket," and "Ironic," and winning the 1996 Grammy for Album of the Year, the LP became an international blockbuster, securing a dedicated fan base and a lasting career that gently matured on 1998's Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie and the global chart-topper, 2002's Under Rug Swept. While Top 40 hits slowed after "Hands Clean" from the latter album, Morissette worked steadily through the aughts and 2010s on efforts like 2008's Flavors of Entanglement and 2012's Havoc and Bright Lights, which returned her to the top of the Canadian charts for the first time in a decade. In 2020, she launched 25th anniversary celebrations for Jagged Little Pill and even adapted the album for a Tony-nominated Broadway musical. Not one to rest on nostalgia, she continued to release new music, with 2020's Such Pretty Forks in the Road and 2025's Carly Simon collaboration "Coming Round Again" reflecting her personal and musical growth.

Morissette was born in Ottawa, Canada, and began playing piano and writing songs during her childhood years. She also joined the cast of You Can't Do That on Television, a children's television program. Using money that she earned on the show, Morissette recorded an independent single, "Fate Stay with Me," which was released when she was only ten years old. She then concentrated on a musical career after leaving the show's cast, signing a music publishing contract when she was 14. The publishing contract led to a record deal with MCA Canada, and Morissette moved to Toronto before releasing her debut album, Alanis, in 1991. A collection of pop-oriented dance numbers and ballads, it found success in Canada, going platinum and winning the singer a Juno Award for Most Promising Female Artist. In 1992, Morissette issued Now Is the Time, a more stripped-down, ballad-forward set of songs that reunited her with Alanis producer Leslie Howe. Though the album featured several singles that appeared on the Canadian Top 40, it didn't sell as well as Morissette's debut.

Following the release of Now Is the Time, Morissette relocated to Los Angeles, where she met veteran producer Glen Ballard in early 1994. Ballard had previously written Michael Jackson's hit single "Man in the Mirror," produced Wilson Phillips' hit debut album, and worked with actor/musician David Hasselhoff. The two decided to collaborate, and despite their shared experience with mainstream pop, they pursued an edgier, alternative rock-oriented direction. The result was Jagged Little Pill, which was released in 1995 on Madonna's label, Maverick Records.

On the strength of the angst-ridden single "You Oughta Know," Jagged Little Pill gained attention upon its release in June 1995. The song soon received heavy airplay from alternative radio outlets MTV, and MuchMusic, helping the album achieve multi-platinum status. Jagged Little Pill's subsequent singles -- "Hand in My Pocket," "All I Really Want," "You Learn," and "Ironic" -- kept the record in the Top Ten for an astounding 69 weeks, and Morissette was nominated for six Grammys in early 1996. She won several of those awards, including Album of the Year (making her the youngest winner of that award at the time) and Song of the Year. In her homeland, she and the album won six Juno Awards, including Album of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year, Songwriter of the Year, and Best Rock Album. Morissette also won a Brit Award for International Breakthrough Act. Selling tens of millions of copies worldwide, Jagged Little Pill would go on to become one of the most celebrated albums of all-time. Its accolades continued into 1997, when "Ironic" earned two Grammy nominations and won the Juno Award for Single of the Year (that year, Morissette also won the Songwriter of the Year and International Achievement Juno Awards).

After spending 18 months on the road in support of Jagged Little Pill -- a tour that was documented in 1998's Grammy winning Jagged Little Pill Live -- Morissette released its much-anticipated follow-up, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, in November 1998. Inspired by the Iyengar Yoga she began practicing after the end of the tour and her subsequent trip to India, the album took a more experimental approach. Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie yielded the hits "Thank U" and "That I Would Be Good" and set a record for the highest first-week sales by a female artist, topping the Billboard 200 Albums Chart the week of its release. The album won the Juno Award for Best Album, while "Thank U" was nominated for the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Grammy Award. Morissette promoted Junkie with an extensive tour that found her sharing the stage with openers Liz Phair, Garbage, and Sloan; in August 1999, she kicked off a co-headlining tour with Tori Amos dubbed 5 1/2 Weeks. An MTV Unplugged set appeared that same year and featured a cover of the Police's "King of Pain," as well as a version of "Uninvited" from the City of Angels soundtrack, a song that won the Grammy Awards for Best Rock Song and Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Morissette's other 1999 releases included a live version of "Are You Still Mad" that appeared on Live in the X Lounge II, and her performance of "So Pure" from Woodstock 1999 was nominated for the Best Female Rock Vocal Performance Grammy Award. Also in 1999, she returned to acting, playing the role of God in Kevin Smith's film Dogma.

After appearing on Tricky's 2001 album Blowback, Morissette returned with a fresh sound on 2002's Under Rug Swept. Recruiting notable guests such as Dean DeLeo, Flea, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Eric Avery, Morissette wrote and produced the album herself, digging deep into past traumas and setting her sights on healing, as heard on singles such as "Hands Clean" and "Precious Illusions." The album topped charts across Europe and North America, performed well in Asia, and sold millions around the world, earning platinum status in Canada. Morissette won the Producer of the Year Juno Award for her work on "Hands Clean" and "So Unsexy." Sessions for the album were so fruitful that she ended up releasing a handful in the form of 2002's Feast on Scraps.

In 2004, she returned with So-Called Chaos, home to the Canadian Top 3 single "Everything," appeared in the Cole Porter biopic De-Lovely, and toured with Barenaked Ladies. A year later, she took Jagged Little Pill on the road as an acoustic tour. Those tour dates led to the release of Jagged Little Pill Acoustic. Collection -- an 18-track retrospective of her work -- followed in November 2005. That year, Morissette was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame, while "Wunderkind," her song for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, garnered her a second nomination for the Best Original Song Golden Globe Award. Following 2006 appearances on Lifetime's Lovespring International and FX's Nip/Tuck, Morissette released a ballad version of Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps" on April 1, 2007 as a way to let off steam while recording her next album. The brooding Flavors of Entanglement, which dealt with the emotional fallout from the dissolution of her engagement to actor Ryan Reynolds, appeared in 2008. The album reached number two on the Canadian charts and number eight in the U.S. Morissette then returned to acting, appearing on the Showtime series Weeds in 2009 and 2010 and appearing in the experimental play An Oak Tree. Also in 2010, Morissette released "I Remain" from the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time soundtrack and contributed an acoustic version of the song "Still" to a Music for Relief compilation that raised funds for victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The birth of Morissette's first child in 2010 resulted in 2012's hopeful Havoc and Bright Lights, which focused on spirituality, marriage, and motherhood. The Canadian chart-topper also debuted at five on the Billboard Top 200.

Over the next few years, Morissette played some acoustic shows, acted, and launched a self-help podcast. In 2015, she celebrated the 20th anniversary of Jagged Little Pill with the release of a four-CD Collector's Edition reissue of the album. The Jagged Little Pill revival continued with a musical adaptation of the album that featured a book by Diablo Cody. Featuring two new songs, "Smiling" and "Predator," Jagged Little Pill premiered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in May 2019 before moving to Broadway in late 2019. Though it closed due to complications of the COVID-19 pandemic, the show earned 15 nominations at the 74th Tony Awards and won the Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album. As the world slowly began to reopen after the initial surge of the pandemic, the show began a successful touring run that took it across the U.S. and Australia.

While the Jagged Little Pill musical captured attention on the stage, Morissette continued with her solo efforts, issuing "Reasons I Drink" as the first single off her ninth studio album, 2020's Such Pretty Forks in the Road. Working with producers Alex Hope and Catherine Marks, Morissette explored middle-aged motherhood in the guise of a serene soundtrack, a combination that helped earn the album a Juno for Best Adult Contemporary Album. Though a planned tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of Jagged Little Pill was sidelined due to the pandemic, the trek eventually kicked off in 2021 with old tourmates Garbage in tow.

Maintaining a busy early-2020s schedule, Morissette picked up the reflective thread of Such Pretty Forks in the Road with The Storm Before the Calm, her first foray into meditation music. Produced by Dave Harrington of Darkside, the album arrived in June 2022. The following year, Morissette recorded a cover of "No Return," the theme song to the Showtime series Yellowjackets. In 2024, she was presented with the inaugural Luminary of the Year prize at the first annual Resonator Awards, a ceremony dedicated to celebrating women producers and engineers. Morissette teamed up with Carly Simon for the August 2025 single "Coming Around Again." A cover of a song Simon wrote for the 1986 movie Heartburn, "Coming Around Again" appeared in the film My Mother's Wedding and featured Simon on backing vocals.~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine & Neil Z. Yeung